Tom Harkin: “Mr. President, I have, as the Senator from Indiana knows, great respect for him. We have had a great working…”

“Mr. President, I have, as the Senator from Indiana knows, great respect for him. We have had a great working relationship on the Agriculture Committee. I daresay, without any fear of contradiction, that perhaps in most, if not almost all, of the present focus that we have on agricultural research and the changes that were made in research were because of the leadership of Senator Lugar. My friend from Indiana has been unafraid in what I call pushing the envelope in trying to think outside the box on agriculture, and maybe in some ways we find ourselves in a box on agriculture. I might be one of the first to admit that. We have over 60 years of Federal farm programs that have been designed, in essence, to try and support our farmers, our farm families, during periods of low prices, during periods when their income would fall basically due to no fault of their own. A lot of times my urban friends will ask me why do I have all of these farm programs. There is not the same thing for a hardware store, or the dry cleaning shop, or a number of other main street businesses. I always have to bring them through the process of why we are where we are, and that agriculture is really unlike a Main Street business in that there are so many variable factors beyond the farmer's control.”